How Mookie Betts Ended His "CHOKING" Reputation With One Month

When the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani, the memes started rolling right in regarding what many thought would be another inevitable playoff choke, like people saying this is how Ohtani is going to be in the clubhouse after Mookie and Freddie do nothing in the playoffs again as they go one and done again. Now the Dodgers had become a team people enjoyed watching choke and get dusted in the playoffs, but it was never about the players. It's more so always been about subscribing if you enjoy the videos and the Dodgers basically being the West Coast Yankees, except, you know, not anymore because the Dodgers actually win championships, but it's the money and big LA market people have fun rooting against. The Oz shows everyone at one point hated, not because they're like a big market team, but because their players cheated in what's now the most infamous baseball scandal ever. A lot of people don't like the Padres because they think their players like Machado or Tatis are profile or cocky or annoying or whatever, but the Dodgers, okay, they had Trevor Bauer for half a season. A lot of people hate him, but again, he was there for half a season, so he's not really associated with them at all. Julio Arias, not a very cool guy. That's just about all I can think of, but again, I've never heard anyone say they hate the Dodgers or that they're rooting against the Dodgers because Julio Arias used to play for them. Shohei, Mookie, Freddie, Teosca Hernandez, Kike Hernandez, Kershaw, I'm sorry, am I supposed to hate something about any of those guys? Then again, nobody is even saying that, it's just the fact that us sick, twisted humans love seeing successful things go down, and the Dodgers have been a successful, good team for a long time now, but none of those division titles meant a thing heading into 2024. And a lot of people were not even just hoping at this point, but full on expecting the Dodgers to go down in October as lifelessly as Joseph Stalin on March 5th, 1953, and a big thing that needed to change, if the Dodgers were going to change the tides, was for the big guys they already had before Otani to produce what mattered absolutely most, notably Mookie Betts. Mookie Betts is a great player, Mookie Betts is a fantastic player and has been his entire career so far. He's been consistently a star who you could very well argue is underpaid by the Dodgers when you compare it to market value and what other players make, and like several of his Dodger teammates, Mookie is a sure hall of famer. Which is all great, but going into 2024, there was what I would describe as a small cloud looming over Mookie's head regarding his legacy, others may argue it was a bigger cloud, and we'll get into why I think Mookie being looked at as a choker was overblown, but the facts are he wasn't ever great in the postseason, I wasn't arguing that. Mookie's career OPS heading into 2024 was .900, with a batting average of almost .300, but his career postseason OPS and batting average, .710 and about .250. Now here's what I think was overblown about Mookie's postseason reputation, 4 of his career postseason years featured a maximum of 4 games his team played, in 2016 the Red Sox got swept by Cleveland, lost in 4 to Houston in 2017, in 2022 the Dodgers lost in 4 to the Padres and got swept in 2023 to Arizona. Now that's not an excuse for Mookie's poor hitting in say 2023, he didn't get a single hit in that series, but again it was just 3 games, that's a wildly small sample size to look at Mookie as a real problem. When you take a big sample size like the 2020 playoff run, which I don't like looking at that year the same way I view any other year, but he did play 18 postseason games that year and was great. But it also wasn't like Mookie really changed much for the 2020 Dodgers, they were probably gonna win it all regardless, and in 2017, that Red Sox series against Houston that they lost in 4, Mookie got at least 1 hit in every game, did he do anything insane? No, and in 2018, when he won it all in Boston, and the MVP too, Mookie wasn't great and didn't really have any iconic moments in the playoffs. He did hit a homer in the final game of the World Series, which was cool, but that was really it. 2021, Mookie had a good postseason in the 12 games the Dodgers played that October, he hit over 300, that's great, but again, did he do really anything that fully stuck out? Which is where we get into what I think was the biggest thing about Mookie and why he Despite having plenty of great moments throughout the regular season as one of the game's best players, Mookie hadn't ever really had a big moment. Like it never felt like he was the reason the Red Sox or the Dodgers did what they did in a rally. He wasn't the one hitting big homers or setting the tone, like he didn't seem to be leaving the biggest impact even if he did get some hits or find some success along the way. So having that, and then proceeding to hit under 100 combined in the quick 2022 and 2023 Dodger postseasons, it was definitely fair to criticize Mookie and expect more from him even if it was in a small sample size. Again, the small sample size wasn't me making excuses, but more so me saying, hey, yeah Mookie has been objectively shitty in the playoffs the last couple years, but let the Dodgers last at least a few more games and I think we'll see something different out of him. I think that narrative will change, he's way too good for this. And in the first couple games of the first round rematch of 2022 against the Padres, now in 2024, Mookie didn't do much, although it didn't help that Jerickson Profar robbed what would have been a home run. The series was split heading to San Diego, and this is where the switch turned on. Everything changed for the better. Mookie started off game 3 with a home run that wildly almost played out as a carbon copy of the Profar catch in game 2, same spot just now in Petco Park rather than Dodgers Stadium in that left field corner, and Profar got a glove on it but couldn't catch it. Homer and Dodgers are off to a great start. Unfortunately, the Padres would rally big and go up 6-1, and although Teoscar Hernandez had something to say about that, the Padres held on and it was now looking like Deja Vu from 2022, hey that rhymed. The Padres were up 2-1 in the series with a chance to clinch at home, that is until things changed, for the better, because this wasn't going to be like years past or the Dodgers just promptly die quietly into the distance. Mookie began game 4 like he did game 3, setting a tone that wouldn't be messed with, as the Dodgers went on to win the series in 5, and he'd be one of the best hitters the rest of the whole postseason run that ended in a championship, Mookie 2nd with LA and 3rd in his career. Mookie had a big game 4 in New York against the Mets in the NLCS. With the Dodgers lead at just 1, he'd add massive boosts of insurance with a 2 run double and 2 run homer, so that's a 5 run lead now, and in a postseason game on the road, it's so vital to keep the fans quiet as much as you can, to put them away as much as you can, and that's exactly what he did. He drove in the winning run in game 5 before the Dodgers won it all, and yeah, overall I just think this was a very good example of what Mookie Betts really is. The dude can hit, no matter what time of year it is, he's a future hall of famer and 3 time champ for a reason, and according to him, watch out Derek Jeter, he's on his way, Jeter has 5 rings, Mookie has 3, and as for the haters and doubters, 4 words, Mookie wins, you lose. Let me know your thoughts and thank you for watching.